No Pitchfork review, only a handful on Metacritic. This seminal band returns with its first new studio album in TWENTY-FIVE years and you wouldn't even know it. I've asked friends if they've heard it yet and I hear "Bauhaus has a new album?"

Anyway, I'm not a big goth fan, and am far from an expert on the band (more of a Love & Rockets fan over the years), but this really is top notch stuff. Sounds totally like them, but also contemporary (in a good way).

Obviously the guys sound great, as they've been playing their instruments for many years, a much tighter band than Bauhaus was, for better or worse. Murphy might not have the same range or strength, but he sounds nothing like a caricature. He's the real deal. Daniel Ash's guitar really tornadoes its way through this whole album, and it's refreshing considering how clean much of his sound was in Love and Rockets for most of their discography.

The album kicks off with Too Much 21st Century, which sounds a bit L&R-esque due to the dirty, funky shuffle (GREAT David J bass line) and backing vocals. It's about as un-Bauhaus as it gets on the album, but it works as a fresh start. The more rocking, upbeat songs are on the first half of the album, after which it delves into darker, moodier, murkier territory.

Other highlights are Undone, Endless Summer of the Damned, Saved (the most "goth" song on the album, very dramatic, but not in any kind of cartoonish fashion), Mirror Remains, and the "title" track Black Stone Heart ("Go Away White" is part of what you might call the song's chorus), which for me is the album's highlight. It's the kind of song you could only picture Bauhaus pulling off, it's totally representative of the band and also a singular creation that builds on what's come before. I can't get enough of it.

I actually considered making a thread on this but was scared no one would care, glad to see I was wrong! I've only listened to it once all the way through since picking it up. I liked it quite a bit though, and it's quite impressive considering they haven't released an actual studio album in so ridiculously long. My only negative comment is that some of the songs can be repetitive, but admittedly Bauhaus always made music like that.

I'm really liking Mirror Remains, the bass line and guitars really work together in a cool old school Bauhaus way (but as you said, it sounds completely contemporary). Others I'm already liking quite a bit: Adrenalin, International Bullet Proof Talent, and Endless Summer of the Damned. I'll have to listen to Black Stone Heart again right immediately, as I can't even remember it....

I could have sworn there was a thread about Bauhaus not too long ago with more people professing their love. These guys should be getting just as much, if not more attention than Joy Division does around here.